Every day, you (and your prospects) are exposed to thousands of brands wanting to be the sole focus of your attention. As a practice owner, you are also one of those brands trying to draw attention in an increasingly noisy world. Even more, your audience may misunderstand the importance of your work. So how do you make your message matter? You make it personal.
In PT, you’re constantly interacting with new people and learning how to relate to individuals with a wide range of backgrounds. You adapt your message and your treatment to each person that walks through your door. With that skill set already developed, it will be easy for you to transition your skills to enhance your marketing messaging. Here are 5 tips that may help.
It’s time to narrow down your audience from just the general human population. In what type of community is your practice located? Who are the typical people that you treat? Do you offer a women’s or men’s health program? Do you have services for the aging and elderly? These are all important questions to answer when curating your marketing message. If you offer age- or gender-specific programs, consider segmenting your email list to send more specific emails to the appropriate audiences. Advertise these specific programs in the physical and digital spaces where they’re relevant. The best way to get someone’s attention is by communicating that you can solve their group’s specific problems.
Your audience probably already knows that you treat pain all across the body. Generalized information isn’t going to help you stand out in the mass of brands already vying for their attention.
If you treat a lot of patients with throwing injuries, tailor a message to those athletes. If you’re great at handling sciatic nerve pain, let the individuals with sciatica stop their scroll for your message about their precise issues. If you point out the pain that someone is suffering with and tell them you can help, they’re sure to pay attention.
Marketing channels are the places that you get your message out. Some channels you might already use are print media and social media platforms. Why is it important to market on multiple channels? Each one reaches out to a different audience.
For example, your posts on Instagram should be targeted to a younger audience than your posts on Facebook, because that’s the audience that will likely receive it. If you want more patients of a certain demographic, find out what channel would be best to reach them and use it. If you’re looking to build professional connections, then use professional channels (LinkedIn, personal phone calls).
Further, channels are a great way to personalize your message to the viewers you know will see your message. By interacting with Facebook groups in your area, or reading and responding to the comments on your Instagram post, you’ll know who’s paying attention to your content on each platform and curate your messages accordingly.
The least expensive customer to market toward is the one you already have. Existing patients are often the most underutilized resource in the quest to expand your revenue, and should not be overlooked in your marketing strategy. Did you know that high value patients are likely to return 2.5 times within 5 years and refer at least 2 new patients?
Perhaps you have an after-care program that you can market to current patients; maybe you offer classes and workshops that former patients may also want to attend. Never throw out the relationships you’ve already built with current and past patients. You have already won their attention, and you have information on their needs and interests that can help you direct specific messages to them. Consider automating outreach to patients after they graduate from care. Better yet, tailor that automated outreach to their profile.
Life events are great opportunities to reach out to those in your community. Whether you send out emails to wish those in your database a happy birthday or you congratulate the business on your block that just opened, showing that you care about milestones in someone’s life is a great way to start building a bond with them. Don’t forget about all the different places patients can come from, and reach out to everyone in your market, from Facebook friends to city council members.
With all the messages already crowding our every day, making yours seem unique isn’t an easy task. The key to beating your competition is getting personal with your message by using the relationships you’ve already established and the information you’ve already gathered. That way, you step out from the crowd and a little bit closer to the members of your audience.
